With its 1.4-GHz Intel Core i3-2367M CPU, integrated Intel HD graphics, and a 128GB Toshiba SSD that writes files like a hard drive, the Toshiba Portege Z835 provides performance that's good enough for productivity and HD movie watching, but won't blow anyone away. On PCMark Vantage, a synthetic benchmark that measures overall system speed, the Portege Z830 scored a mere 6,039, a bit above the 5029 category average but weak in comparison to more expensive competitors such as the MacBook Air 13-inch (11,230), the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s (10,174), and the ASUS Zenbook UX31 (10,233). Among direct competitors, only the Acer Aspire S3 (5,489) did worse.
Though the 128GB Toshiba SSD allowed the Portege Z835 to boot in as little as 21 seconds, the drive suffers from poor write speeds that are more typical of a 7,200 rpm hard drive than a solid state drive. It took the Z835 2 minutes and 59 seconds to complete the LAPTOP File Transfer test, which involves copying 4.97GB of mixed media files. That's a rate of 28.4 MBps, which is significantly lower than the 38.5 MBps ultraportable category average and miles behind other SSD-equipped competitors such as the ASUS Zenbook UX31 (97.9 MBps), Lenovo IdeaPad U300s (83.4 MBps), and MacBook Air 13-inch (127 MBps).
When we ran CrystalDIskMark, a synthetic storage benchmark, the Z835's drive managed a sequential write speed of only 48.7 MBps when most older SSDs range from the 150 to 225 MBps and newer SATA III models can achieve more than 400 MBps.
The Portege Z835 did better when it came to crunching video, as it took just 36 seconds to transcode an HD clip using Cyberlink Media Espresso, lower than the 2-minute and 54-second category average and on a par with the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s (37 seconds) and the ASUS Zenbook UX31 (32 seconds).
The notebook's relatively slow 1.4-GHz CPU made it take quite a bit longer than its competitors to complete our Spreadsheet Macro test, in which we use a macro in OpenOffice calc to match 20,000 names with their addresses. The Portege Z835 took a glacial 11 minutes and 36 seconds to compete the test, significantly longer than the 8-minute and 37 second category average and further behind the times turned in by the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch, the ASUS Zenbook UX31, and the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s.
